Raoul Glaber

Raoul Glaber ( Rodulfus Glaber , i.e. Glabrous the or the Bald person ), born in 985 in Burgundy and died in 1047, is a monk chronicler of his time (the time of the An Millet ) and one of the most important sources available to the historians on France during this period.

His/her uncle, a Monk, the fact of entering at the twelve years age to the monastery of Saint-Leger-with-Champeaux. It is expelled by it because of its control.

It enters then to the Monastère Saint-Benign to Dijon where it remains of 1025 with 1030. In 1010, it meets with the abbey of Moutiers-Saint-Jean Guillaume de Volpiano, then the abbot Odilon, with Cluny, in 1031.

Lastly, he becomes monk with Saint-Germain-in Auxerre where he resides starting from 1039.

Works

One owes in Raoul Glaber a Vie of saint Guillaume abbot of Dijon , or Guillaume de Volpiano ( Vita Sancti Guillelmi Abbatis Divionensis ), and Histoires ( Historiæ ).

These last, entitled quinque Historiarum libri ab ass usque incarnationis DCCCC AD ass MXLIV ( Five books of stories since year 900 after the Incarnation until the year 1044 ) were started between 1026 and 1040 with the Abbaye of Cluny (book I and part of book II) and were completed with Saint-Germain-in Auxerre.

Initially intended to constitute an ecclesiastical History (universal), they cover events which have occurred in the center of France, by mingling them with anecdotes and visions in edifying matter. Impressed superstition, they do not constitute of it less one particularly lighting document on first half of the 11th century.

Raoul Glaber evokes there his Temps from the point of view Eschatologique. According to Rich Pierre, indeed, a complete book of its work described the year 1033, which constituted the thousandths birthday of dead and the Résurrection of the Christ, and could be interprêtée symbolically like an end of time.

Raoul Glaber also brings many information on the “Paix of God”.

An erroneous reading of the work, which does little case of the context in which she was written, gave birth, under the feather of the historians of the 19th century century, with the tough legend of the “fears of the An Millet”.

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